


A Million Worlds Away

by Evercovi



Series: A Tale of Two Worlds [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (sort of), Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Road Trips, Trauma, Watcher Charles | Grian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29429214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evercovi/pseuds/Evercovi
Summary: Tubbo finds Tommy huddled underneath a pillar taller than the clouds themselves and makes a split second decision. Dragging Tommy behind him, he runs into a spruce forest that seems to welcome them with open arms, and the duo find themselves in a new world, far, far away from home.Join an ex-president, an exiled teenager, and a builder with a secret to hide on a journey of recovery. Bonds are reformed, and a new family is found.(A million worlds away, a white-masked man turns a server upside down in search for two missing children.)(A million worlds away, deep in The End, a frozen trail grows warm and a stagnant search begins anew.)
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit & Charles | Grian
Series: A Tale of Two Worlds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161818
Comments: 41
Kudos: 294





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes hello I've jumped onto the HC x DSMP bandwagon and now I present to you a multi chapter work I've been planning since the year began, enjoy :D 
> 
> Disclaimer: despite how this work is tagged this story will solely be about the characters/personas the CCs play as, and hence nothing in this work will be about the CCs themselves. Any actions of the characters in this story is not representative of them as people and should not be interpreted as such. If any CCs ever express discomfort with fic just let me know and this'll get yeeted
> 
> TW for: violence, blood and gore, implied suicide attempt

There was something _off_ about the woods.

There was something peculiar about it, so tangible he could taste it on his tongue, bitter and heavy. It felt like someone had broken into his house and shifted all the furniture a centimetre or two to the right. It felt like thunder a single note too high. It felt off and wrong, yet despite how much Tubbo tried he couldn’t describe what exactly has set his senses off, the words dancing on the tip of his tongue.

He heard Tommy exhale in pain as they stepped off a grassy ledge. Tubbo paused to quickly tighten his grip on his friend’s waist and secure his arm more tightly around his neck, before continuing the trek through the thick carpet of pine leaves. The night sky shone above, a rich blue peppered liberally with stars large and small and nebulae ranging from orange to yellow to blue. Polaris hung steady and bright ahead of them. Spruce trunks surrounded them from all sides, towering up into the sky, and mossy cobblestone boulders popped up every now and then, like pimples on blemished skin.

“Just a little more,” Tubbo said, and wasn’t sure if the reassurance was more for him or for Tommy.

Tommy didn’t respond.

Tubbo peered upwards, trying to see through the thicket of leaves to the sky above. Was that daylight, or was that the glimmer of stars shining through the leaves? Whatever it was, he decided, the principle was still the same; get as far away from Logstedshire as possible; as far away from the ruins of the camp that scarred the once pristine plains, as far away from the pillar that stretched high into the sky, as far away from blackened wood and smoking dirt and craters that had ripped through the once beautiful ground.

“Tubbo,” Tommy said, croaky and weak, and Tubbo tried not to show how startled he was. This was the first time Tommy spoke, ignoring the few weak protests of how Dream wouldn’t like it if he left.

“What’s up, big man?” Tubbo said.

Tommy didn’t talk for a few seconds. Tubbo got the impression he was gathering up energy to speak.

“Do you hear that?” He finally said.

Tubbo frowned and stopped walking, so that the two of them stood stock still, back to a spruce trunk. He cocked his head to the side, held his breath, and listened.

There was absolute, complete silence.

And then the scratch of bone against bone pierced through the air, quickly joined by the clicking of mandibles from up above. There was a deep rumbling growl to the left of them, and another to their front. And slowly but surely, all around them, the forest came alive with the sounds of hissing and rattling and clicking and groaning, each sound adding on to the one before in a monstrous, cacophonic symphony.

“Oh,” Tubbo whispered in dawning horror.

The impromptu orchestra reached its crescendo, and the duo's eyes grew wide.

They were _fucked_.

Tubbo laid a hand over the satchel he had slung over his suit, stuffed with snacks and utilities. His axe and crossbow were slung over his back, and a quiver of crossbow bolts hung at his waist. They both had no armour, saved for Tubbo’s cracked and chipped iron boots. What could they do? They were surrounded on all sides by monsters seeking blood. Tubbo had no shield and Tommy had a broken leg; there was no way they could run.

The only option left to them was to fight, and Tubbo was not liking his odds.

“Tubbo,” Tommy said for the second time that night, voice steely, grounded in resolve. “Give me the crossbow.”

Tubbo shrugged off Tommy’s arm and helped him lean against the tree trunk, peering into his friend’s eyes. They were dull, still as dull as when Tubbo found him, leaning against the wood pole that stretched high above the clouds. But there was a spark of determination, as fragile as a candle flame in a whirlwind. And that gave Tubbo hope that burned bright in his chest.

Tubbo wasn’t stupid as much as he tried to pretend he was. He knew what Tommy had tried to do. The fire — small as it was — in Tommy’s voice told him that he wanted to live; or at least, he didn’t want to die, and that made Tubbo’s heart soar.

All of a sudden, he felt like they could take on the world. Him and Tommy, against undead monsters, against a god-like admin, against the very world itself.

Tubbo grinned fiercely and gave him the crossbow and quiver, helping Tommy shift to a more comfortable position on the forest ground. He tightened the straps on his boots, unslung his axe, helped Tommy check through the bolts for damage.

The monstrous orchestra grew louder and louder.

Tubbo took a deep, calming breath, feeling the chill of the Taiga cut through his suit. He stood in front of Tommy, feet apart, axe out — shining in the moonlight — waiting for the horde to descend.

And a second later they did.

A zombie stumbled through the thicket of trees in front of Tubbo, and he pounced, swinging his axe in an overhead arc. The head buried itself into the zombie’s rotting chest with a crunch, crushing bone and cartilage, cutting through muscle and sinew. Blood that looked almost black in the night squirted out in gushes. Wordlessly, Tubbo braced a foot against it’s torso and yanked, eyes already fixed on another target as the zombie collapsed.

Something landed to the side of him, sending up a flurry of pine needles. Tubbo stamped his foot down, pinning the spider to the floor. He tilted his axe upside down so the head was pointed towards the ground and drove it deep, feeling the carapace crack underneath.

Somewhere on his right, a skeleton rattled. A crossbow fired half a second later in retaliation, sharp twang piercing through the air. Its sternum cracked, and shattered, ribs falling to the ground, skull rolling off into the distance.

The axe finally got through the thick carapace and Tubbo yanked it out, looking for another target.

The next few minutes were a blur of frantic activity. His arms ached from hefting the heavy axe, breath coming out in short, stuttering gasps, pain shooting through his chest. There was no end to the horde of undead, and there was a growing sense of resignation in Tubbo’s chest as he slowly realised that this may very well be how he dies.

The president of a broken country glanced at his friend. Tommy was up and fighting, crossbow bolts having run out a while ago. Determination blazed bright and _furious_ in his eyes, face a picture of desperate tenacity. He shoved a stick through the eyes of one undead and stabbed a broken arrow through another.

Another crunch, another dead body. Tubbo’s shirt was drenched in blood and his hands were stained red, red, red.

There was a yelp of pain, and Tubbo saw Tommy collapse.

His heart stuttered.

Tubbo hacked down another zombie, ignoring the icy-cold blood that splattered across his face. Tommy scrambled back desperately on his unbroken leg, crossbow just barely out of reach.

“Tommy!”

Tommy’s head jerked up and Tubbo noted vaguely that his eyes looked like they were on fire, fear and desperation burned bright and high in his eyes. Pain shot through his tired legs as he ran stumbling over roots and rocks to his injured friend, only to cry out in shock and anger as a zombie crashed into him on the right. Tears sprang to his eyes as his head slammed against the ground. Tubbo raised his axe just in time for the zombie to chomp down on the handle, spit and blood and rot splattering across his face. The zombie growled and Tubbo growled back, furious and desperate.

“Tu —”

“Tommy!” Tubbo shouted, raw and desperate. “Listen to me. Grab my bag and run.”

“What —”

“ _Go!_ ”

Tommy scowled, looking close to tears. Snarling, he hefted a heavy tree branch and whacked it into the side of the zombie that bore down on him, using his broken leg to push himself up. A second later he clapped a hand over his mouth, tears slipping down his stained cheeks, eyes squeezed shut in pain. Tubbo felt his heart clench as Tommy curled up into a ball, a hand gripping the fabric of his pants, slamming his fist into the ground.

Tubbo’s arms ached and burned having to keep the zombie at bay.

Resignation rested heavy and cold in his lungs, the antithesis to Tommy’s burning determination. They were going to need a miracle if they wanted to live.

And luck must’ve been on their side today, because a miracle they got.

Someone with iridescent, shining wings _flew_ down from the sky, a sharp, sharp grin on his face. He landed feet out, slamming into the zombie Tommy had tried to fend off to no avail, crushing it’s fragile, rotted ribcage under his boots with a sickening crunch. His black eyes flashed in the moonlight as he yanked out a gleaming netherite sword, shining and resplendent.

The man had curly blond hair even more unruly than Tommy’s and fingerless gloves that went up to his elbow. A worn red sweater, frayed at the ends, was soon drenched through as he slashed at a zombie.

Gritting his teeth, Tubbo snapped his axe to the side, grabbing the axe head with both hands and pulling sharply to his left. The undead’s rotted head snapped to the size, still biting down on the handle of his axe, and Tubbo took the millisecond of opportunity to roll to the side and brace his hands behind him, before slamming his armoured foot into the zombie’s head. A quick chop of his axe left it’s head rolling on the ground. Tubbo paid it no mind.

He stumbled towards Tommy, gripping his shoulders in a death grip. Tommy grasped at his wrist, coughing and hacking.

Tubbo watched as the man swung at a zombie's neck, cleaving its head clean off. He didn’t fight with Tommy’s reckless abandon or Tubbo’s careful defensiveness. He fought with cunning, with intelligence, smile sharp and eyes even sharper.

The man wasn’t the best with a sword, but his cunning made up for his shortcomings as he danced around the forest light on his feet, ducking under swipes and pounces and flying arrows. He used zombies as shields, letting the skeletons finish off the undead. He dodged at the exact right moments, letting spiders pounce onto skeletons.

Eyes wide, Tubbo and Tommy looked at each other as the last of the undead fell before a sword now dripping in blood. The man breathed out, rolling his shoulders back and tilting his head to the sky, stars glistened in his eyes. After a while, he stabbed his sword into the ground and turned, jogging towards them with a look of concern.

“Are you okay?” He said, voice full of worry. “No serious injuries?” Tubbo shook his head mutely, eyes glancing back at the sword the man carelessly stabbed into the ground. Wasn’t that netherite? _Enchanted_ netherite? And he’d just leave it there for anyone - undead or player - to take?

The man smiled in relief. “Well, that’s good then. My house’s close by, you guys can go and get patched up.”

Tommy tugged at Tubbo’s shirt sleeve. Tubbo glanced at him, and Tommy raised his eyebrows, flicking his eyes towards the man that stood over them. The message was perfectly clear.

_Can we trust him?_

Tubbo hesitated.

Could they trust him?

They had no idea who the man was, and the Dream SMP was supposed to be whitelisted. Unless, of course, Dream added someone new without telling anyone, which was a possibility. But this raised the question: was the man working with Dream? Would he report back to the white-masked man about Tommy running from his exile?

Would he mention Tubbo helping him?

What would Dream do, in that case, if he knew? He would rebuild the walls around L’manburg, Tubbo supposed. Tall, shining obsidian walls 3 blocks thick. Or he would revoke Tubbo’s presidentship. Could he do that? Or, even worse, he would blow L’manburg to the ground. There would be nothing left. Friend would be gone. Historical documents, the declaration of independence, Fundy’s diary, everything would be burned to ashes, erased off the face of the world.

But then.

The man already saw them. Hell, he _helped_ them. Tubbo could take Tommy and run but how far could they get? They would be slaughtered before they could even escape the forest, torn apart by hungry undead.

It all boiled down to one question: what more did they have to lose?

Nothing, really. If the man was helping Dream L’manburg was already as good as dead. However, if he genuinely wanted to help? It was the best chance of survival they’ve got.

 _There’s no choice_ , Tubbo mouthed and watched Tommy frown ever so slightly, brows drawing together. His eyes flicked from left to right and he chewed on his bottom lip, before he sighed and shrugged.

“How far is it?” Tubbo asked the man.

The man cocked his head to the side, hands playing with a loose thread from his sweater. “There’s a jungle that borders this spruce forest. I live somewhere… inside, towards the edge a bit.”

“Okay,” Tubbo said. “Let’s go.”

Tubbo helped Tommy up, mindful of his leg, and the man handed Tommy back Tubbo’s crossbow and the now empty quiver of crossbow bolts, and they headed off.

It was about a minute into the journey that Tubbo was reminded that they didn’t even know the man’s _name_. Tommy seemed to have thought the same thing, because he immediately blurted out, “Who the fuck are you?”

The man turned, shock flickering across his face. “You know, most people on the server would prefer it if you didn’t swear.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Tommy muttered, and Tubbo felt his concern bowl him over like a tidal wave. Tommy? Apologising for swearing? Unheard of.

What exactly happened in the past month?

They passed the last of the spruce trees, into an empty stretch of plains. A jungle, tall and wild, stood unyielding before them. Thick vines hung from trees ten times as tall as himself, curling themselves around thick trunks and cacao pods. Bamboo of varying heights decorated the edge of the jungle, acting like a boundary of sorts.

The man grinned, brushing aside a bush of leaves to reveal a tiny trail that curved around the thick trees. “It’s not far, now.”

Tubbo waited until the man was far enough away before he leaned over to whisper in Tommy’s ear. “Why did you apologise?”

Tommy was silent for a long while, but Tubbo didn’t miss the way he curled around himself, as if he was trying to make himself smaller.

“Did you see him fight?” Tommy whispered back. “And did you see how sharp his sword was?”

Tubbo opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted.

“We’re here,” the man called from further up ahead, waving to them cheerily, the moonlight kissing his fingertips.

“Welcome to my hobbit hole,” he said, spreading his hands wide, standing in the middle of the clearing they found themselves in.

Tommy’s mouth fell open.

Flickering yellow lanterns - a waste of iron they could never afford - decorated the clearing. A tiny wheat farm was pushed to one side, backed by a steep slope. A circular doorway protruded from the small hill before them, open and inviting, bracketed by large circular windows covered in stained glass and framed with spruce wood. The lights flickered merrily inside.

The night sky shone above, a rich blue peppered liberally with stars large and small and nebulae ranging from orange to yellow to blue. Polaris was nowhere to be found.

The feeling of _offness_ was back, stronger than before.

 _The larger than usual number of mobs_.

_“You know, most people on the server would prefer it if you didn’t swear.”_

_The missing star in the sky, gone without a trace_.

“You know, you haven’t told us your name yet,” Tubbo reminded the man.

The man blinked, and in the light Tubbo noticed the ring of purple around his iris. The wings on his back swayed in the night breeze and the lanterns outlined his body in a soft, yellow glow.

His eyes flared purple in the firelight.

“It’s Grian,” he said.

\---

Tommy watched Grian warily as the man made a mess of his own kitchen, climbing over the counter to open all the barrels attached to the ceiling, before jumping down and yanking open all the drawers below the stove.

“I’m sorry,” Grian said, checking a chest tucked into a corner. Tommy saw glass panes stuffed in between warped stems and prismarine shards. “I’m not a very organised person.”

Tommy glanced at Tubbo, arm still hooked around Tubbo’s neck, and they both stared as Grian took the lid off a barrel near the doorway — only for him to accidentally knock it over in his haste, yellow concrete powder, lanterns, and half a stack of wood spilling onto the dark wooden floor.

Grian let out a long, tired sigh.

He turned, kicked open a cabinet and his face lit up in a smile.

“Yes! Found it,” He crowed, dragging out a strange looking purple box that darkened around the edges. Taking off the top, the box split in half to reveal bandages and splints and potions. The box looked a lot like a crown, Tommy realised, little rectangles protruding out from the top edges at regular intervals; much like the parapet of L’manburg’s walls before it was torn down.

“Okay, who wants to go first?” Grian asked them.

Tommy and Tubbo pointed at each other.

Grian raised an eyebrow.

“Tommy should go first,” Tubbo said. Tommy frowned at him, eyes narrowing in irritation. Irritation at what, he didn’t know. Tubbo stuck his tongue out, and that made Tommy even more irritated.

“Broken leg?” Grian asked, filling up a bucket with water.

“How the fuck do you know?” Tommy blurted out, annoyed, and immediately clamped his mouth shut, gaze shooting to the sword that lay innocently on the table. “Wait. Fuck. Sorry, I didn’t mean it that — _shit_ , I’m sorry —”

The bucket thudded heavily onto the ground before them and Tubbo and Tommy both jumped in their seats.

“It’s fine,” Grian said. “X swears like a sailor, sometimes. Iskall too, especially when they're stressed.”

“Sorry again,” Tommy said softly, ducking his head, ignoring the way Tubbo stared at him with worried eyes. Grian sat down in front of Tommy, fingerless gloves discarded on the counter behind him.

“It’s fine,” Grian gave him a reassuring smile, dipping a wool cloth in water. Tommy couldn’t help but feel a small bit of relief, coupled with unease, at how easily the older man had let him off. “Do you want me to roll up your pants or cut it off?”

Tommy glanced at the scissors in the purple box next to Grian, and the kitchen doorway flooded with yellow concrete powder three metres away.

“Roll it up, please,” Tommy said. Grian hummed.

Tommy played with his hands as Grian compared the sizes of the splints in his box, forever wary of the scissors that rested innocently between two rolls of gauze and a sword dripping in blood hanging halfway off the counter. His eyelids felt heavy, yet adrenaline buzzed underneath his veins; a near constant thrum that never really went away. It made his hands tremble and itch and gave discomfort a perpetual home in his chest.

It was tiring, having a war rage on in his head long after L’manburg’s one was fought and won. The constant hypervigilance clashed with how he felt like he was constantly wading through water.

“Who’s X and Iskall?” Tubbo asked, voice shattering through the quiet. Tommy jerked in his seat.

“Oh,” Grian said, as if he’d forgotten something. “You’re not from this server, are you?”

Complete, utter silence.

“Huh?” Tubbo said blankly.

Grian looked up, halfway through scrubbing off the dirt and grime on Tommy’s leg. “What?”

“What?” Tubbo repeated, face scrunched into a frown. “We were — we’re still on the Dream SMP, right?”

Scrubbing the last of the grime off, Grian tossed the dirty rag back into the bucket. He picked up the pair of splints he had set off to the side, selecting one, slowly and gently pressing it to the side of Tommy’s leg, before turning to look at Tubbo with a slight incredulousness.

“How did you manage to get onto a whitelisted server and not know about it?” He asked curiously, though Tommy detected something else underneath his cheerful voice. Worry, Tommy realised, coupled with a small topping of fear. It was easy to identify, considering he had ample experience with sussing out the worry in Phil’s normally cheerful voice.

Tubbo immediately shifted to dig out his communicator, elbowing Tommy neatly in his ribs. Tommy felt himself jerk at the sudden contact, and then he felt annoyed at himself for jumping at every little thing, and then he felt annoyed at being annoyed - and, well. It was a vicious cycle. Tubbo’s eyes widened as he read the screen.

“We are not in the Dream SMP,” Tubbo said, in a flat “oh fuck” tone, the sort of tone you use when you realised you’ve undeniably, irrevocably fucked up. Tommy didn’t shift his eyes away from Grian, who was tucking pads of gauze in between the splint and his leg. Grian nodded.

“Hold that, please,” he instructed Tommy, gesturing to the splint. He quickly did the same to the other side of his leg, before binding the two splints together using a thick roll of gauze. Tommy’s eyes flicked to Tubbo, and saw him scrolling through the server list, the chat log, and the available server information, eyes growing wider and wider. Tommy wondered if he should be panicking, and found that he really didn’t have it in himself to care.

With one last tug that made Tommy wince in pain, Grian dusted his hands off.

“There,” he said, smiling. “Done.”

“Thank you,” Tommy said.

Tubbo looked torn between resignation, bursting into tears, and swearing up a storm. In the end he settled with burying his head in his hands.

“How did you even break it anyway?” Grian asked him, rolling the gauze back up.

Tommy glanced at his splinted leg.

“I fell,” he said, trying to forget the chill and how tiny the trees looked from above the clouds.

Grian hummed. “I’ll give you a potion tomorrow and it should be fine in a day or two. Remember to lift it up when you sleep.”

He placed the box back on the table. “Uh - Tubbo? Any other severe injuries I should be aware of?”

Tubbo’s head shot up, and he rapidly shook his head.

“I’ll leave you guys to fix the rest of your injuries, is that okay?” Grian asked, slipping his gloves back on.

Nodding frantically, Tubbo grabbed a roll of gauze. “Yes,” he said, rolling up his sleeve, a determined sort of look on his face, glad at having something else to focus on other than the issue at hand.

“I’ll go get crutches for Tommy’s broken leg and set up the guest room in the meantime.” Grian continued, stepping through the mess of concrete powder. “You _are_ staying here, right?”

He felt Tubbo nod beside him; but there was something Grian said that set off alarm bells in his head, clanging and ringing in between his ears. It made his hackles rise, heart beating a little faster in his chest.

“How did you know our names?”

Grian turned. The faint ring of purple around his iris flared in the firelight. “The tab list,” he said, and vanished into the hallway.

\---

Tommy picked at the clean bandages around his arm, watching the flickering of the lantern in the corner. The room was quiet. Peaceful. Everything he did not feel.

“Do you trust him?” He asked Tubbo.

“Who, Grian?” Tubbo drew the blankets closer around himself. “He seemed nice enough. And he helped us too.”

“It might be a trick,” Tommy cautioned, looking down at Tubbo from his perch on the side of Tubbo’s bed. The green afterimage of the lantern wavered wildly back and forth over Tubbo’s face.

Tubbo’s eyes traced the gentle curve of the ceiling. “I doubt so. He didn’t have to save us, but he did.”

Tommy remembered lava so hot and bright it made his eyes tear up.

“Dream didn’t have to, but he did.” Tommy retorted, and immediately regretted it.

Tubbo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Forget it.”

“Tom —”

“ _Forget it_ ,” Tommy snapped, watching Tubbo flinch away, regret already bubbling up in his stomach. He ran a hand through his hair, lips pressed tight together, shifting his eyes to the bookshelf on the opposite wall. The print on them was small and hard to make out, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

“Sorry,” Tubbo muttered.

The words _it’s okay_ pushed against the back of his tongue, yet when he tried to get them out they sunk their claws in the walls of his throat. Dream’s voice, so matter-of-fact, echoed at the back of his mind.

_He didn’t come visit you._

_He doesn’t care about you._

_I’m your only friend._

It was frustrating. It was frustrating enough it made Tommy want to scream and cry and throw a tantrum like he was five again. In his head he knew Dream was a liar, like how he knew the grass was green and the sky was blue, but his heart had a harder time believing it.

“Go to sleep, Tommy,” Tubbo said softly.

“I don’t sleep anymore.” Tommy replied, exhaustion hanging heavy off his words. He hadn't slept in the past three days, and he had no intention to start now. He could sleep when he was dead.

Tubbo looked at him with undisguised worry in his eyes, mouth half open like he wanted to insist Tommy go to sleep right now, _or else_. Instead, he buried himself further into the soft bed.

“Goodnight, Tommy.”

Tommy glanced out the window, gaze falling on Grian, the man sitting on the bench right outside his house. His hands were clasped around a steaming cup of tea.

“Goodnight, Tubbo.”

\---

Grian sat cross-legged on the bench in front of his hobbit-hole, window to the kitchen behind him. The lanterns flickered with a merriness he did not feel.

The tea in his hands was cold.

There were many things that worried him in everyday life. Such things included, but were often not limited to: things just _too_ outside the norm to be normal, events just _too_ coincidental to be likely, and scenes just _too_ perfect they could’ve come out of a storybook.

(Granted, all those things were because of a certain group of individuals whose name started with w and ended with s. But Grian hated to think about them, so he did not.)

He tilted his head back, resting it on the back of the bench, eyes tracing the bright stars that dotted the deep, amaranthine sky. A galaxy split the night sky in half, looking like a sharp and jagged ravine, the edges cloudy and bright. There were the smatterings of nebulae down at the bottom right corner; bumblebee yellow curving around the wispy edges of sandstone orange, prismarine green dancing between the stars. 

He thought about the two children he saved, how they fought with desperation yet with such skill that bespoke experience. He thought of Tommy, with messy blond hair and tattered clothing, whose eyes flicked between the sword and scissors with fear in his eyes, who jumped at every sudden noise. He thought of Tubbo, a young child who Grian now knew was around his height, wearing a suit a size too big that made him look smaller than he really was, who walked hunched like the weight of the world was on his back. There was a tension that hovered over the two of them, yet they clung to one another like they were the only thing they had left in the world.

The duo reminded him uncomfortably of himself, and at certain points in the night Grian felt like he was looking into a mirror. He could see himself in how Tommy’s eyes darted around the room, how Tubbo’s smile was a little too wide to be sincere; it reminded him of himself two and a half years ago, jittery and anxious and always looking over his shoulder. And those two were _young_ , they definitely weren’t a day over eighteen.

It scared him as much as it made him sad.

It scared him, because there was no login message to announce their presence; they’d just appeared on the tab list, and if Grian hadn’t been looking at his communicator at that time he would’ve missed it. Their entrance was quiet and unobtrusive.

What else was quiet and unobtrusive, always watching from the shadows until the time was right to make themselves known?

Watchers.

His hands shook.

Grian was being irrational and he knew it, but it was hard to rationalise with the fear resting heavy on his tongue, heart racing faster than he could fly.

He pushed himself back up, noticing the lightening sky, and watched as the sun crested the horizon and the world burst aflame. A rich golden yellow flooded the clearing before him and painted the sky a million shades of red and pink. The moon and stars shifted aside to make way for the rising sun, the dark mulberry sky lightning into lapis. To his left and right, back and front, the jungle burst alive with the squawking of birds and pandas, creating a melodious symphony that made his mood lift, however minuscule.

Grian loved the sunrise. It was overwhelming at first, to go from a dimension so devoid of life to one so full of it, but now that he was here he made it a point to cherish every second.

He stood up, tea in hand. There were many things that worried him. Such things included, but were often not limited to: a child with blond hair who jumped at every sudden noise, a boy in a suit too big for himself, and the staunch, changeless, steadfast threat of a certain group of individuals whose name started with w and ended with s.

But that was a problem for Later Grian, when he had to talk to Tommy and Tubbo again. Present Grian had to prepare breakfast, and so that was what he did.

\---

A million worlds away, a man in a white mask strode through the shattered remains of Logstedshire. A thin layer of water coated the twisted and burnt stripped wood, glistening under the gentle breaking dawn. Light the colour of lemon and honey danced across the wood.

If you were to ask anyone on the server who he was, you would receive the same response - that he was the admin, and that he was very, very dangerous. Stay away. Run while you still can. Never, ever provoke his anger.

Because if you do, you’re a dead man walking.

And Tommy definitely was, because Dream was undeniably _furious_.

A gloved fist slammed into a tattered wall and it broke into a million splinters, exploding outward into the still smoking field, flashing red and orange and brilliant gold.

Dream growled, eyes glinting in the rising sun. He was going to get that bullheaded, meddling child back where he belonged, and he didn’t care if he had to turn this server upside down to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably the longest thing I've written in a while. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it :D
> 
> Anything you want to see for this series? Anything you've enjoyed? Any feedback or critique, typos you've noticed? Just leave a comment down below :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I would like to preface this chapter and mention that this story is going to tackle Tommy, Tubbo and Grian's experiences with trauma, the consequences that come, and how each of them can heal and grow. I've done the best I could to ensure that this topic is dealt with the sensitivity it deserves using a mixture or my own research, experiences, and how the Dream SMP portrays Tommy coming to terms with his own trauma. However, if you find anything to be offensive or inaccurate or just tone-deaf, please don't be afraid to let me know and I'll do my best to make the relevant edits.
> 
> Right, with that said, hope you enjoy this 7000 word chapter :D
> 
> TW for: suicidal ideation, a mild panic attack, and explicit descriptions of self-hatred (if you feel anything needs to be added don't be afraid to let me know!)

Tubbo woke up in the morning with a jerk.

“Morning,” Tommy said from where he stood, book open in his hands.

Tubbo’s hand shot out of the duvet to grip the edge of the bedside table, trembling, breathing heavily, his eyes glazed seeing everything and nothing at once.

“Tu — you okay?”

Tubbo gasped and pushed himself up into a sitting position, eyes shiny. The shirt he wore — borrowed from Grian — was damp with sweat.

“You’re still alive,” He said blankly, turning to look at Tommy, eyes glistening not just from the sun. He looked haunted and sad and tired and so, so _scared_. Pushing himself out of bed, he padded over to where Tommy stood. “You’re still alive,” Tubbo repeated, with more feeling, placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

“I’m still alive,” Tommy said, trying to sound as comforting as he could, closing the book in his hand.

Tubbo dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said, and it came out muffled. “Nightmare.”

“Nightmares fucking suck,” Tommy agreed, and Tubbo huffed a laugh. Tommy fiddled the edges of the book in his hands, trying to find out where he took it from. Grian wasn’t lying when he said he was not very organised, because the bookshelf, despite being in the guest room, was a complete mess. Tommy held an impromptu staring contest with the bookshelf, book in hand, scowl on his face, and he swore the bookshelf was glaring back at him.

“Wanna talk about it?” Tommy offered tentatively, deciding to shove the book underneath a hefty hardcover titled _10 Design Principles of Architecture._ There. It was now officially no longer his problem.

Tubbo gave him a tired, but thankful smile. “No — no. It’s fine, I’m already forgetting most of it. And it didn’t make much sense, anyway.”

Tubbo sat back on the bed, blinking away the last of the sleep from his eyes, and a peaceful silence fell over the room. Tubbo tilted his head back, eyes tracing the lines of the planks on the ceiling. He looked lost, like a sailor adrift at sea.

“I wonder if Grian would let us stay here if we asked,” he said softly. 

“Why would you want to stay here?” Tommy asked, though something inside him already knew the answer.

“Well, we can’t — we can’t possibly go back, could we,” Tubbo said, fiddling with his hands. “Dream probably knows you’re missing, and if he finds out that I helped you, who knows what he’ll do?”

Tommy ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. It was logical. It made sense. He still didn’t like it, paranoia buzzing at the back of his mind.

_(“It was never meant to be,” Wilbur and Eret whispered at the back of his mind - in sync, in terrifying tandem, conductors of an orchestra of destruction.)_

“Well, what Grian betrays us?”

Tubbo’s leg started to jiggle. “How?”

Tommy shrugged, feeling a tiny bit self-conscious, heart rate kicking up a notch. A tiny part of him knew the fears he had were probably unfounded, but he couldn’t help but focus on them until they consumed his mind from the inside out.

It was terrifying. It was the only way he knew how to live.

Tommy tugged at his hair. “I don’t know — what if he wants us to trust him before he kills us? Or what if he’s the only nice one on this server and everyone else is —”

“We’ll — we’ll always respawn though,” Tubbo pointed out, voice starting to waver. He stood up to pace around the room, picking at the burn scar on his arm — hands shaking, hands trembling. “This isn’t the Dream SMP anymore.”

“Well yes — but we don’t know how the three lives system works, what if it carries across servers?” Tommy said and Tubbo flinched, as if he had struck a sore spot.

“I —” Tubbo brought his hands up, combing through his hair, tucking them under his arms. “Let’s look at this logically -”

“— I _am_ being logical —”

_(“It was never meant to be,” Wilbur and Eret whispered at the back of his mind.)_

“No, no, listen — we had no armour, and we were about to _die_. Grian managed to save us, and he offered us a place to stay, I don’t — that counts as something, right?”

There was panic on Tubbo’s face and Tommy felt bad, he felt guilty, hearing Tubbo’s voice start to rise, but there was fear thick in his throat and it felt like he was drowning -

“Well I _know that_ but there’s always - he might be lying and what if he turns out just like Dream —”

“He won’t, Tommy, just _shut up_ —” Tubbo hissed. Tommy flinched. Barely a millisecond, a look of gut-churning horror — and regret, maybe? But regret about what? — flickered across Tubbo’s face.

“I — wait, Tommy, I’m —”

“It’s fine,” Tommy said, hurt coiling around his heart, guilt threatening to swallow him up like a hungry dragon’s maw.

“Tommy —”

“It’s _fine_ ,” He snapped, suddenly angry at the hurt that felt like a hot stone in his chest, angry at a hurt that ran deeper than that — a hurt that had been festering like an infected wound for weeks, ever since Tommy had to leave L’manburg behind.

 _He’s not your friend,_ Dream’s voice echoed. _He hates you._

_He hates you he hates you he hates you._

That couldn’t be, right? Tubbo did come. He came eventually, when Tommy was at his lowest point, sitting at the base of that tower with nowhere else to go. And Dream — Dream was a liar, and so that meant Tubbo _didn’t_ hate him. But Tubbo _did_ burn his compass, and that meant he hated Tommy enough to do so — so why did he save him?

Tommy was confused. He felt that he was spending a lot of time confused, and decided he hated it. He wondered if things would go back the way they were before exile, where Tubbo didn’t hate him.

He wondered if it could.

“Let’s go find Grian,” Tubbo said shortly, not looking at Tommy. “He said wanted to speak with us.”

\---

Grian was kneeling in the dirt outside his house, shovel in hand as he dug out spoonfuls upon spoonfuls of potatoes. Wiping a hand across his face, he brushed off the dirt that clung to the roots, and tossed them into another one of those strange purple boxes beside him. Tommy saw him tense, before he spun around, raising a hand in greeting.

“Good morning,” He said cheerily, tossing his shovel aside.

“Morning,” Tubbo said softly. Tommy shuffled beside him, tugging at his hair, trying his best not to look awkward.

“Okay, wait wait wait — before we do anything yet, I have to ask you guys a question,” Grian said quickly, brushing his hands off. “Do you plan on staying here?”

The duo blinked.

“I — you would let us?” Tubbo said, taking the tiniest, most minuscule step forward, as if hardly daring to hope.

_(“It was never meant to be.”)_

“Why not?” Grian said, a slight smile on his lips.

“Isn’t this supposed to be a whitelisted server?” Tommy asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice. “Would you really just let anyone join?”

“Didn’t you tell me last night you were running from someone?” Grian pointed out. Tommy remembered. Remembered Grian returning to the kitchen, crutches and new clothes in hand, asking them how they got onto the server. Tubbo replying, in a terse voice, hard set to his jaw, that they were running from someone dangerous while Tommy tucked his hands under his thighs, trying to keep them from shaking.

“What does that have to do with letting us stay?”

Grian’s smile turned sad. “You’re not the only ones running.”

And that — 

That was surprising. Tommy wondered if Grian was lying and realised he was probably not. There was the same look in his eyes Tubbo often got; the same look where he focused off into a distance only he could see, eyes glazed, seeing everything and nothing at once.

Grian closed the lid of the box full of potatoes, brushing his hands off. “I’ve cleaned and sewed your clothes,” he told the duo, slipping on his gloves. “You can wear them if you want. I’ve left them on the kitchen table. There’s breakfast and bottles of healing and regeneration too. Healing’s for the cuts — and Tommy, the regeneration’s for your leg. Drink a bottle after each meal and it should be better in a day or two.”

He strode forward, further to the center of the clearing, the wings on his back twitching and shifting to catch the wind.

“I’m going to — I’ll be visiting Xisuma today,” Grian added, tugging out a rocket from his inventory. “To tell him that you’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future. I’ll probably be back at night, so feel free to explore and do whatever you want —”

He blinked.

“Is there anything wrong?”

Tubbo’s hands were shaking, trembling, and by _god_ was Grian observant, to notice someone’s hands shaking from that far away.

“I — It’s fine, it’s fine,” Tubbo said, voice shaking; everything about him was shaky, really, from his hands to his voice. Tommy shifted closer, pressing his arm to Tubbo’s, because he did still care about Tubbo, and if Tubbo’s head was gonna get all spinny like Tommy’s did when he thought about TNT and plains, Tommy was going to do his best to help him.

“What’s the rocket for?” Tommy asked, thinking about crossbows and a box and a festival gone wrong. He already dreaded the answer Grian would give — maybe he wanted to threaten them, make sure they would behave while he was gone; or maybe it was a signal, but a signal for what? But no, that couldn’t be, Tommy knew little of Grian but what little he knew told him the man was scarily smart, definitely smart enough to know fireworks as a signal during the day would hardly be visible —

“It’s to help me fly,” Grian explained, and Tommy’s thoughts skidded to a halt.

The wings on Grian’s back twitched and flared out, shining and glistening in the sun. “Elytras can only help you glide,” He elaborated. “The rocket is to provide the force required to take off.”

“If you pull at the string at the bottom,” Grian continued, pointing to the dangling thread, and miming a tugging motion. “The rocket explodes and provides a burst of hot air which propels you into the sky. It can also help you speed up if you’re already flying.”

“Oh,” Tubbo said softly, though his hands didn’t stop shaking. Grian gave them a tiny smile and placed the rocket back into his inventory.

“Wait, wait — you can fly, it’s okay, don’t let me stop you —” Tubbo rambled, waving his hands.

“Oh — it’s fine,” Grian said. “I just realised it’s better to visit Scar first because he has something I need. And he lives like — right across the lake.”

Tommy tugged out his communicator, checking the player list.

“GoodTimesWithScar?”

“Correct, and also one of the nicest people on the server,” Grian said, already running to the lake that was partially blocked by jungle trees.

“Bye!” He yelled, waving his arms, a bright smile on his face. “Go have fun!”

Tommy and Tubbo watched as Grian disappeared into the trees.

“You okay?” Tommy asked softly.

“Y-yeah,” Tubbo breathed, tucking his still shaking hands under his arms. “Yeah. I am.”

A silence fell over them. Birds were chirping, the sky was clear, and the clearing was flooded with light, glinting off Tubbo’s hair and the water of the lake in front of Grian’s house and the waxy surface of the jungle leaves.

“So. What do you want to do today?” Tubbo asked, slightly awkwardly, still staring off into the distance.

Tommy frowned. What _did_ he want to do? Mining, perhaps, for armour and tools, so that they weren’t as utterly defenseless as they were now. But there was no way Tubbo would let him, considering his broken leg. Exploring, maybe? Scoping out the land? Could they manage that with Tommy’s broken leg?

“I don’t think I should come,” Tommy said. An indescribable look flashed across Tubbo’s face, one that almost looked a lot like resignation.

“Why?” Tubbo said, sounding almost sad.

“I might just slow you down.”

“Nonsense,” Tubbo answered vehemently. “What do you wanna do today?”

Tommy frowned, thinking.

“I — we could go find bees?” He finally suggested, shrugging, almost taken aback when Tubbo immediately brightened, face lighting up brighter than the sun.

“Yes! Yes —” Tubbo said, clapping his hands. “Let’s go find bees!”

“Where — where _are_ we gonna find the bees, Tubbo?” Tommy tried to ask as Tubbo ran back into the house, buzzing with excitement. “We’re in the middle of a jungle —”

“Dunno,” Tubbo said with a grin and shrug. “But we’ll find them eventually!”

\---

“I don’t think there are bees here, Tubbo,” Tommy said from somewhere behind him.

“You may be right,” Tubbo said reluctantly. “It is really pretty, though.”

Though to say it was just ‘pretty’ was to do the village they found themselves in a grave injustice. Picturesque houses surrounded them, some perched on hills, others tucked into hillsides, all brilliantly decorated and carefully detailed with a masterful hand. A path weaved around the houses, bracketed by shrubs and tiny bamboo shoots and tall grass.

“I wonder who lives here,” Tubbo said in awe, walking further down the path, gravel crunching under his feet. The sheer amount of time this must’ve taken, to decorate each individual house and terrain the surrounding land to perfection.

“Aren’t they scared?” Tommy asked. “What if someone comes and blows it up?”

Tubbo shrugged, peering down at the wheat farm to the side of the path, fenced off by cobblestone stairs and slabs. “Why would Grian blow this up?”

“Grian’s not the only one living here,” Tommy remarked, shielding his eyes to look at the absolutely _enormous_ builds that poked out of the foliage of the jungle. “There are probably people in that spanner building and that huge massive fucking tree.”

“I really hope no one blows this up,” Tubbo said, hopping onto the cobblestone guard, a wide, admiring smile on his face. “Because holy _shit_ this place is amazing.”

Tubbo saw Tommy smile — faint but genuine — at his enthusiasm, and Tubbo felt his heart grow lighter and the surrounding green grow a little more vivid. They may have argued, and Tommy may still hate him, but Tubbo was an optimist by nature and so chose to believe, in that moment, that everything would be Okay. This would be their first step. Their first step to Being Okay.

Tommy did that little hop-walk thing you did with crutches, propelling himself forward, peering curiously into a nearby cottage.

He froze.

Add that to the probably never ending list of changes that happened to Tommy, Tubbo told himself a little bitterly, worry growing in his chest. Tommy was more of a fight than flight type of guy, so to see him freeze was as surprising as a slap to the face.

“What’s wrong?” Tubbo asked, hopping off and running forward.

“There’s someone inside,” Tommy hissed to him.

“Should we say hi?”

“Why would you — why the _fuck_ would you want to say hi?” Tommy told him, harsh and biting, and Tubbo winced, hurt.

“Because it’s a nice thing to do?” Tubbo said defensively, trying not to take offense. Tommy was — Tommy was struggling, he knew. Tubbo wasn’t stupid. He knew there were things called abuse and suicide, and he knew how to piece things together like a puzzle in his head. Still. That didn’t stop the hurt that grew in his chest, didn’t stop the voice in his head that shouted _“Tommy hates you”_ over and over in his head like a broken record.

It’s okay, Tubbo told himself, trying to believe it. This was just a setback, a tiny step back in their plan to Being Okay.

“Well, what —” Tommy started, a tiny bit too loud, and the man in the cottage with the wide open doorway glanced up. A sash was draped over a purple suit covered in dirt and grass and leaves, and a gold monocle glinted in the sun.

Tommy tensed beside him, and Tubbo could feel his heart starting to pound. Grian had been nice so far, giving them food and shelter and letting them take refuge on this server — but were the other members the same?

 _No,_ Tubbo tried to tell himself, trying to ignore all the loud loud thoughts that were telling him to be on guard. _Think positive. Everyone’s nice until proven otherwise._ It was a dangerous mindset to have, but Tubbo was tired of the constant hypervigilance that made him jump at every sudden noise. He wanted to stop having to look over his shoulder every minute.

It was an unsolvable paradox, one that Tubbo was tired off. He would feel awake and alert, jumping at every sudden noise, standing with his back against a wall, and then he’d feel exhausted by the constant vigilance, then he’d feel alert again but this time feeling like his brain was stuffed with cotton, making it harder to think, and then he’d feel even more exhausted — and everything’ll repeat again. It felt like his vigilance and exhaustion were waging a war in his head, with Tubbo as, like, collateral damage. Tubbo was sick of being collateral damage.

“Hello!” Tubbo said cheerily, forcing a smile onto his face, hand unconsciously tapping at the sword hilt that rested on his hip.

The man smiled back, open and friendly. “Hello!” He said, running forward, hand in the air in an enthusiastic wave. “Tommy and Tubbo, right?”

Tubbo nodded.

“Great, I’m Scar,” the man said, tugging at his sash so that it rested properly on his shoulder, shaking his head free of dirt. There was a scar that stretched across his face, from his right temple to his left cheek. “Welcome to the server!”

“Thank you,” Tommy said, though Tubbo got the impression he was saying that just to be polite.

“I —” Scar started, then stopped. “Wait — I have something for you, just follow me,” he continued, rambling, jogging down the gravel and dirt path. He tripped on his shoe — toe catching on the heel of his left boot — and nearly face planted into the ground, which Tubbo and Tommy both ignored with surprising tact. “Grian told me all about you —”

“Told you about what?” Tommy asked. Defensive, cautious, scared.

Scar shrugged. “Nothing much, just that you’ll probably be staying with him until everything settles down.”

He stopped in front of a snail made out of logs and stripped wood. Climbing up the ladder with surprising agility, he ducked into the snail-house and emerged, carrying another one of those weird purple boxes.

“Here,” Scar said with a flourish. “Take it as a welcome gift.”

“We don’t want your pity box,” Tommy snapped, shoulders tensing. Scar’s eyebrows raised in what looked like shock, and Tubbo wanted to elbow his friend in the ribs, because _that’s not what you say when someone gives you a gift._

“What makes you think it’s pity?” Scar asked, a surprising gentleness in his voice.

Tommy opened his mouth to snap back. “I —” he said, with force, anger written in every line of his face.

“— I don’t know,” he finished softly, deflating like a squeaky balloon.

“I promise it’s not pity,” Scar said, handing the box to Tubbo.

“I — I always meant to ask,” Tubbo said, staring at the package in his hands. “What’s up with the weird purple boxes everywhere? I saw Grian using one and —”

“You mean the shulker box?” Scar answered nonchalantly. Tubbo could see the exact moment Tommy understood.

“This — this is a shulker box,” Tubbo said, trying to comprehend it. Dream had always told them The End was a place of no return; a dangerous, dangerous dimension where only death awaits — which had always juxtaposed with the tales Phil told them when they were younger, but Tubbo wasn’t going to argue with his memories now — so to see someone just so casually hand it over was just enough to flip Tubbo’s view of the world on its head. And that was saying something, because Tubbo’s seen some pretty weird stuff.

Tommy looked like he was about to scream.

“Protect this - we have to protect this with our lives, Tubbo,” he said instead, staring at the box like it was a bomb.

“This is — I will, I will,” Tubbo rambled.

“You don’t have to - are you guys okay?” Scar asked, concerned. “I can give you another one if you’re so worried about it -”

“No — it’s just —” Tubbo did not take his eyes off the shulker box. “We’ve never really seen one before.”

“Oh,” Scar said. Then, “How do you carry all your building materials?”

Tubbo finally dared to look up. “In our inventories?” he said, confused. How else they were supposed to carry the items around?

“But — what if not all of them would fit?” Scar replied, gesturing uselessly with his hands.

“Why wouldn’t they fit?”

Scar opened his mouth as if to argue, and snapped it shut, chewing on Tubbo’s words.

“I — I won’t keep you any longer,” He finally said. “Just — do me a favour and tell Grian to give me my child back.”

“Your _what?_ ” Tubbo exclaimed. If Scar and Grian were in the middle of a messy custody battle, Tubbo wanted no part in it.

“Just tell him that. He’ll understand.” Scar said, as if that explained everything. It did not.

“Wha —” Tubbo tried to say, waving his hands uselessly. Scar was already bidding them goodbye, running back the way he came.

“He just — he just gave us a shulker box, _just like that_ —” Tommy said, trying to make sense of it all. Horror and terror in equal measures flashed across his face. “Will people target us for this?”

“I don’t —” Tubbo felt his thoughts speed up, from a leisurely walk to a run. “It should be fine, right? Grian has several of these, it definitely should be fine.”

“Just keep it in your inventory,” Tommy told Tubbo, who gladly did. “And hope no one finds out we have it.”

\---

They were about half a day into their quest to find bees when Tommy let go of one of his crutches to nudge his elbow.

“Tubbo,” he said. “Look up.”

Tubbo glanced up. He frowned and rubbed his eyes.

“What does that say?” He asked Tommy, pointing to the words that hung in the sky.

“ _Eth._ ” Tommy read out. “What the fuck?”

“Look,” Tubbo pointed to the end of the message, where there was the beginning half of another letter, partially cut off by the jungle trees. “I think it continues.”

“We need to get higher if we wanna read it,” Tommy said. Tubbo glanced to the side, where the — as Tommy so eloquently put it — _huge massive fucking tree_ stood tall and unyielding. Though to say it was a _huge massive fucking tree_ was also an understatement, considering the man-made tree itself went up all the way to what looked like build height.

“How do you feel about trespassing, Tommy?” Tubbo asked. Tommy looked understandably cautious. Tubbo was also cautious himself, but they did technically barge into Scar’s magical village and Scar _didn’t_ kill them, and so Tubbo was inclined to believe that the person who lived in the massive tree was also very nice, ignoring the thoughts that told him _no no no danger_ with an immovable, Tubbo-brand stubbornness.

“It’ll be fine,” Tubbo reassured, taking out an axe.

Tommy winced as Tubbo chopped away two logs, creating a wide enough hole for them to slip into the hollow tree. “I don’t think this is a very good idea,” he said.

“Scar and Grian’s been nice so far,” Tubbo said, squeezing through the gap, into the wide circular room beyond. “This person’s probably gonna be the same.”

“What if they’re not?”

“They will be,” Tubbo said a little too vehemently, Tommy accidentally echoing the thoughts that were currently clamouring in his head like an orchestra where the only instruments being played were cymbals.

Tommy stepped through the tiny gap and followed Tubbo as he walked up a spiral staircase that circled the entire diameter of the hollow tree, climbing higher and higher. There were tiny alcoves carved into the side of the tree, iron and gold carefully tucked inside, which they both spent a considerable amount of time gaping at.

If this was the Dream SMP, those valuables would be stolen in a day at best. Tubbo was starting to realise this server was nothing like the Dream SMP, because there was honest-to-god _dust_ on the gold in the corner, which meant not even the owner had touched it — and who doesn’t use the gold they mine?

They managed to find a hole that went through the entire length of the outer ring of logs, its floor covered with a thick layer of honey. Tommy made a face as his crutches sank into the goo.

“What does it say?” Tubbo asked, following Tommy as they squelched their way across honey. 

“ _Etho smells like Beef,_ ” Tommy read out. He squinted, raising a hand to shield the sun from his eyes as the words got smaller and smaller, stretching off into the distance. “ _And will fart._ ”

There was a beat of silence, and Tommy huffed in what sounded like laughter. “And will fart.”

“Fart,” Tubbo repeated, in awe, snickering, Tommy’s lips twitching upwards.

“Who’s there?”

The smile slid off Tommy’s face.

Someone poked his head around the curve of the hole. Their eyes — eye, actually, singular — widened in surprise.

“Oh, hallo!” They said, raising a hand to give them a cheerful wave. “Tommy and Tubbo, right?”

Tubbo glanced at Tommy, feeling strangely like he got caught with his hands in the metaphorical cookie jar.

Tommy nodded slowly.

“Sorry for trespassing,” he apologised quietly, crossing his arms and picking at his shirt sleeve, all while giving Tubbo a discreet side eye that definitely said _“I told you so”_.

“Oh, it’s okay,” they said. “Welcome to the Omega Tree! I’m Iskall, did you need anything?”

“We — we just wanted to see what the message was,” Tubbo said, pointing out the hole. Iskall grinned broadly.

“Perfectly understandable,” they said. “Which reminds me,” they continued, clapping their hands. “I have something to give you.”

Tommy glanced at Tubbo and Tubbo could see him open his mouth, ready to snap, his shoulders tensing and eyes narrowing. Tubbo elbowed him sharply in the ribs, already following Iskall down the stars. Tommy scowled, following behind.

When they reached the bottom level of the tree, Iskall ran into a room carved deep into the trunk that was covered head to toe in chests, items littering the ground. They dug out something shiny and ran back to the duo, an eager smile on their face.

“Here,” they said, dropping it into Tommy’s hand.

Tubbo glanced down at the flint and steel in Tommy’s hands, a dark, curved piece of steel shaped like a ‘c’ in one, and a chunky piece of flint in another. The words _FLINT AND STEEL OF DOOM_ were etched into the curved metal.

“Isn’t this _enchanted?_ ” Tubbo said softly. “Why is it enchanted?”

Tommy flipped it over in his hands, recognising the enchantments with something approaching terrified awe. “There’s unbreaking III and mending.”

“What’s this for?” Tubbo asked Iskall, already dreading the answer — lighting TNT, starting fires, mass destruction and violent, bloody anarchy.

Iskall barely batted an eye. “Burning diorite.”

“Burning — huh?”

Iskall stuck their head into a chest and plucked out a piece of cobblestone.

“Okay. Look. Imagine this is diorite,” They said to the increasingly confused duo. “It’s ugly and disgusting and it looks like bird poop. So all you have to do is just -” they tossed the cobble onto the ground, plucked out another set of flint and steel (this one called _HALLO DIORITE_ ) from a pocket in their vest, and set it on fire.

The three of them watched as the cobble smouldered and burned.

“Beautiful.” Iskall said. “Diorite is only beautiful when it’s burning, remember that.”

“Ok _aaay,_ ” Tubbo said, tucking the firestarter into his inventory. “Thank you!”

Iskall tilted their head to the side. “Did you — wait — are you not disappointed?”

“Why would we — no?”

“Wait — so — so did you think that _actually_ was your gift?”

Tubbo scratched at his cheek. “We didn’t expect any gift, to be honest,” he replied. Tommy shifted at his side.

“Well — that’s — aurgh, my joke is ruined now -” Iskall kicked at the floor, hands on their hips, but there was a tiny smile on their face they were clearly trying to hide. “You guys are — you guys are absolutely _untrollable._ ”

Iskall took out something blue and very, very shiny from their inventory, and plopped it into Tommy’s hands. “Take it as a welcome gift for the potential new members of Hermitcraft.”

Tommy and Tubbo both glanced down. Tommy immediately blanched.

“We can’t — we can’t take this,” he stammered, shoving the diamonds back into Iskall’s hands.

Iskall frowned. “Why not?”

“This is — a lot of diamonds,” Tubbo said slowly.

“We’ll get targeted for this,” Tommy whispered as if afraid others would overhear. “This and the shulker box — wouldn’t others kill us for this?”

“Why would they?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ they?”

Iskall fiddled with the nob at the side of their prosthetic eye. It looked more like a nervous habit than anything else.

“Because we’re all friends here?” They laughed in disbelief, as if the idea of just — killing and stealing from their friends had never occurred to them. “That’s just how Hermitcraft works. We don’t steal or grief or do anything dumb like that — and besides, this really is nothing. Grian had like seven stacks of diamond blocks.”

Iskall shoved the diamonds back and backed away, hands raised. “No. I’m not taking it back. It’s yours now,” they said. Tommy and Tubbo shared a look.

“Go make yourselves some armour,” Iskall said, grinning, flicking their fingers in farewell, before slipping back into the storage room.

Tommy and Tubbo shared yet another look. Tommy’s one read _what the fuck?_ And Tubbo was pretty sure his face said the same thing.

“It’s too early for this,” Tubbo said as he and Tommy slipped out the way they came, patching up the hole behind them. Tommy made a noise of assent.

Tubbo helped Tommy down from the wooden ledge, and they continued on their quest to find bees.

\---

They’ve been making their way through the jungle for the better part of the morning _and_ afternoon and Tommy was starting to get really tired of it. Sure, the leaves were vibrant and green and antithesis to the dull and boring plains he spent the last few weeks in, but having to constantly wade through waist high bushes, especially with crutches, was starting to get tiring.

Tubbo was getting tired too. He was talking less and less, opting to stay silent, and Tommy felt really bad. The bees were _his_ idea after all. Tommy wanted to open his mouth, say that they go back to Grian’s house, say that he wasn’t worth the trouble they were going through. There were bags under Tubbo’s eyes and he needed rest, yet he kept on pushing through, cutting away bushes and vines, creating a path with his sword.

He was about to tell Tubbo they should give up when Tubbo perked up, letting out a triumphant yell.

“Look!” He said, grabbing Tommy’s arm in excitement. “I think I see bees!”

“In the jungle?”

“No — look,” Tubbo pointed ahead, where the jungle halted abruptly. A copse of trees stood in the middle of a large, undulating plain, leaves swaying in the wind. A beehive hung from one of their branches — dripping honey onto the ground — and as Tommy watched, a large furry bee exited, drifting towards an oxeye daisy nearby.

Tommy’s head started to spin.

“WOOO BEES! Finally!” Tubbo cheered, punching his arms towards the sky, running into the plain. He snagged a handful of lilies and oxeye daisies, grass tickling his ankles.

The sky was blue and the grass was green and Tommy was finding it really hard to breathe.

“Tommy,” Tubbo called out, flowers clenched in one fist, the other used to block out the rising sun. “Come on!”

His stomach churned. His hands were trembling, and his head was growing really really fucking spinny, world swirling under his feet. The plains smelt like lilies and oxeye daisies.

“I — I don’t want to —” He said, running a hand through his hair, breathing growing quicker and quicker, heart pounding harder than a drumbeat, faster than a hummingbird's wings. He saw green, green, green, a white flash amongst a sea of _green._

“You just said you wanted to see some bees,” Tubbo asked, voice calm and very matter of fact, yet there was a twist to his mouth that felt like a slap to his face. Tubbo was annoyed at him, and a wave of absolute self-hatred _crashed_ over him like a tsunami.

Dream was right, Dream was right, Tubbo was not his friend, no one wanted to visit him in exile for a fucking _reason_ and he was an absolute _idiot_ to have not listened. But Dream was evil, and evil always lies, so that meant Dream was a liar and so Tubbo was his friend and Tommy really really wanted to believe that but _he could never be sure of that could he?_

“No — I — I do,” he insisted, voice wavering, speaking through the terror that threatened to swallow him whole. He was tiptoeing the edge of a cliff, one slight nudge, one tiny push away from sending him screaming into the sea below.

“Then come _on,_ ” Tubbo snapped — well, he didn’t _snap,_ exactly, but his voice hardened in a very Tubbo-like way that told Tommy he was moving from just _annoyed_ to _mad_. When Tommy made no move to step forward, he reached out to grab him by the wrist, tugging him into the sunlight. Tommy’s hand twitched and he yanked it back.

“I — I don’t — you go ahead — go ahead, I’ll wait here,” Tommy forced out. A flash of white, and there was gunpowder in his throat and a chalky feeling on his tongue.

“Tommy — I —” Tubbo sighed, running a hand over his face, tired frustration in his eyes, a disappointment on his face Tommy felt he was trying his best to hide but was very clearly there. _Look at what you’re doing to him,_ his brain suddenly whispered, louder than all the other thoughts waging a smackdown in his head. _He hates you._

“Okay — okay, just st- just stay here,” Tubbo said, shoving a daisy into Tommy’s hand.

He ran into the field, hair glowing in the sun, but there was nothing happy about his expression. Taking out a handful of lilies he sat down crossed legged in the field, near the cluster of flowers, still as a rock. With a determined patience that Tommy could never hope to have he held the flowers out, petals dancing in the breeze.

Tommy shuffled back, hand over his heart, trying to stop it from exploding out of his chest, guilt and fear making his head throb. And he realised, in an abstract sort of way, with no real intent whatsoever, that he wouldn’t have to deal with this if he were dead.

The bees slowly drifted over to the lilies clasped in Tubbo’s hand, and a gentle smile flitted across his face. Standing up, Tubbo waded through the grass, making his way towards Tommy.

“Here,” Tubbo said, the hardness in his voice gone. Well, not all gone, but his voice was lighter and there was a hint of a smile on his face. Two fuzzy bees bumped into one another as they flew around the two flowers.

Tommy and Tubbo stared at the bees in silence as they bumbled around their hands.

“They are — I — bees are great,” Tubbo said awkwardly, shifting uncomfortably in the quiet.

Tommy nodded, throat feeling too thick to speak, and Tubbo’s face fell ever-so-slightly. Guilt and a paralysing wave of self-hatred was eating him up from the inside. The bees were _his_ idea and he even dragged Tubbo all the way here — and for what? For him to ruin things because his head started to get spinny again at seeing some fucking grass?

They stood in silence for a long while. It wasn’t the comfortable silence that fell over them on the bench back in the SMP, mellohi playing in the background. It was awkward and heavy and tense, as thick as the honey that still clung to Tommy’s shoes.

“We should go back,” Tubbo said, watching the bees drift off back to their hive. The sun drifted closer to the horizon, painting the grass in a light shade of orange.

Tommy nodded again.

For the second time that day, Tommy found himself wondering if things would ever go back the way they would before exile.

He wondered if it could.

Tubbo turned and Tommy followed him, their backs lit by the setting sun.

\---

Grian glanced up from the books spread out over the kitchen table as footsteps echoed from the hallway, joined by the tapping of crutches against wood floor. Tubbo poked his head in, giving him a slightly terse smile, Tommy blinking silently from behind.

There was a shulker box in Tubbo’s arms, and pollen on both their hands.

His eyes flashed purple.

_Bees. Lilies and oxeye daisies. Frustration and fear and guilt guilt guilt._

Grian’s smile twitched. “How was your day? Did you have fun?”

“We saw some bees, it was great,” Tubbo said, smiling a little too wide to be sincere. “They fell asleep in our flowers and everything.”

Grian smiled, clearing the table of books as Tubbo moved to deposit the shulker box on it.

“Did you meet anyone?”

“Scar and Iskall,” Tommy replied, a little too quiet.

“So half of the jungle hermits, then.” Grian said, picking up the books he had tossed onto the chairs around the dining table. “This introduction probably wasn’t very ideal, sorry about that. I promise to give you guys a proper tour one day.”

Tommy’s eyes were slightly bloodshot and there was a sort of tired frustration in Tubbo’s eyes, intermingled with layers upon layers of guilt. Grian tactfully chose to ignore the slight tension in between them. This wasn’t the time and place to address whatever was going on between the duo, and besides; it was hardly his place to intervene.

“I — actually, there’s something I have to talk to you about,” Grian said, trying not to wince when both Tubbo and Tommy’s heads shot up. There were probably better ways to have phrased that, considering the only things one would be feeling when someone asks “can I talk to you?” would be fear and apprehension.

“Can you try to disconnect from Hermitcraft?”

“W-what —” Tubbo stammered out, and Grian was slightly taken aback to see the genuine _fear_ in his eyes. “You said we could stay —”

“No no no — yes, you can stay, that wasn’t what I meant —” Grian hastily backtracked, waving his hands. “Xisuma’s already added you two to the whitelist. I just need you to check something for me.”

He took out his communicator, gestured to the disconnect page. “See if you notice anything weird.”

_(“— they appeared without any message, X —” Grian said, tugging harshly at the frayed thread of his sweater. “And they did — they managed to transfer their items across servers — look me in the eyes and say Watchers are not involved.”_

_Xisuma tilted his head to the side, and Grian could see the gears in his head spinning. Thinking, thinking, weighing his answers._

_“I think that certainly is a possibility,” Xisuma finally said, drumming his fingers on the table. “But from the way you described their entrance, it seems unlikely that they’re Watchers themselves.”_

_“It could be someone they’re affiliated to,” Mumbo chimed in. He leaned back in his chair. “Someone from the same server they came from, maybe?”_

_The thread was growing longer and longer in Grian’s hands, tumbling and spilling over his fingers. “But — but why? Why send them here?”_

_“I don’t know,” Xisuma said, a slight frustration in his voice. “But then again, there are a lot of things we don’t know. How they got here, for starters, and whether the person who might have sent them here are looking for them.”_

_Grian paused, thinking, winding the long thread around his fingers — tugging, twisting, pulling. “I don’t think they know what’s going on either,” Grian admitted softly. “They — they were scared, X, and they looked like they were scared of me.”_

_Mumbo bit at his lip, tired and worried. “What do you think all this means?” At Xisuma’s questioning glance, he elaborated. “They didn’t come here via the proper channels. What do you think this means for them?”)_

Tommy was already tugging out his communicator, clicking through the buttons. He frowned, a divot forming in between the middle of his brows.

“What is it?” Tubbo asked worriedly, seeing the odd look on his face.

“The button’s greyed out,” Tommy finally said.

Tubbo turned to Grian, every inch of his body tensed, poised to — to do _something,_ but Grian had no idea what that _something_ was. “What does — what does that mean?”

Grian felt his heart sink like a stone, hypotheticals suddenly becoming a lot more real.

_(“I don’t know if the server would recognise them,” Xisuma mused. “Especially if it’s Watcher magic that brought them here.”_

_He turned to Grian for confirmation, and Grian nodded, mind spinning with the possibilities. “Watcher magic is built on the basis of secrecy,” He explained. “Most of the spells are catered to keep Watchers hidden from normal players and to help them slip into servers. If they did get into the server via non-watcher related means, the server should still be able to recognise them and give them all the functions available to a regular player. If they_ didn’t…” __

_“Do you know any spells that could’ve brought them here?” Xisuma asked._

_“No, I don’t.” Grian said, wishing so desperately he did. “They never gave me any more information than the basic spells. They held it over my head, made sure I stayed obed — q-quiet.”_

_There was a sour taste in his mouth and a similar, upset twist on Mumbo’s lips. Grian scooted his chair closer and stubbornly kicked at his foot. Mumbo raised an eyebrow and kicked back, only to miss. Grian stuck his tongue out, a playful grin on his face, and Mumbo’s mouth twitched upwards._

It's fine. I'm fine.

_“What are those functions?” Mumbo asked, finally landing a hit on Grian’s shoe. “That may be blocked, I mean.”_

_Grian shrugged, trying not to kick Xisuma as he launched a surprise attack on Mumbo’s other foot._

_“I’m not sure. But I think I can make a guess.”)_

“The greyed out button means you can’t disconnect from the server. Xisuma’s already tried whitelisting you, but I don’t think that’s working.” Grian said, his hands finding the frayed edges of his sweater.

“You — so we can’t leave?” Tommy asked. Scared, scared, scared.

“You can’t leave,” Grian repeated, feeling helpless. “And that’s not it.”

“The server doesn’t recognise you. Because to the server, you technically don’t exist.”

“And that means…?” Tubbo asked tentatively, waiting for the shoe to drop.

“You can’t respawn.” Grian said, watching the world come crashing down onto their heads.

“What — why?” Tubbo asked, frantic and anxious and jittery, hands shaking so much they were a blur. Tommy was tugging at his hair, curling in on himself.

“The server doesn’t know you exist. They won’t know when you die, and therefore won’t trigger the respawn system.”

“No — that’s not _fair,_ ” Tubbo said, standing up to pace around the room; trembling hands, hands trembling. “We just escaped - it felt like we could finally be saf —” He cut himself off, biting down harshly on his tongue. Grian winced.

Tommy glanced at Grian, a desperate look in his eyes. “Do you know why?”

Grian hesitated.

_(“So,” Grian asked, lost. Lost lost lost. “What can we do now?”_

_Xisuma tapped at the side of his helmet. Through the tinted glass, Grian saw a flash of worried eyes and a mouth pressed tight._

_“I think you should let them know,” Xisuma said slowly. “From the way you described how they entered the server, they probably don’t know any more than we do, and I feel that they have the right to know about Watchers and what kind of danger they pose.”_

_“That — yeah. I should.” Grian said slowly. “What do I say?”_

_“How about you just tell them something any ordinary person would know? Just common sense things,” Mumbo suggested. “But if you want to go more in-depth, you can also get an extraordinary amount of information from the Archive alone. It won’t be surprising you did know the in-depth things, considering the amount of books you have at your house.”_

_The last part was definitely meant as a prod, and Grian kicked Mumbo’s thigh in retaliation, sticking his tongue out._

_“You still have the barrier, right?” Xisuma asked Grian, who nodded._

_“Fixed it last night.”_

_Mumbo perked up. “Do you think that had something to do with Tommy and Tubbo joining? Maybe the barrier messed with something? Since magic can only clash with magic.”_

_Grian frowned. Add to the endless list of possibilities of what could have happened. “Maybe,” he said, wishing desperately they knew more._

_“Maybe.”)_

“I _may_ do,” Grian said, back in the present, watching Tommy and Tubbo perk up.

Grian paused, steeling himself. His heart started to thrum fast fast _fast,_ and all of a sudden he felt cold in a room that was cosy and warm. There was red thread in his hands, tumbling and spilling over like water in an overflowing cup, and he wound them along his fingers — tugging, twisting, pulling.

“Have you ever heard of Watchers?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Anything you particularly enjoyed? Any feedback or critique? Just leave a comment down below :DD
> 
> Anyway, some wordbuilding notes down below that no one asked for but I will gladly provide:  
> So. Inventories exist, when Tubbo's been described having a satchel in chapter 1. I figured those in the SMP would rather carry around their items in plain sight, like weapons etc so that they're perceived as a threat, and to send a message to other members, like. "hey. im armed. think twice before attacking me." while the hermits would much rather use their inventories, considering having a backpack or a heavy axe on your person would severely impact your ability to fly :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian and Mumbo plan for a one-way trip, and Tommy's world goes off kilter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's been a wild two weeks amirite DSMP folks
> 
> I wish I had some comfort to hand to you but unfortunately the comfort is scheduled for a bit later in the story, sorry :p
> 
> On that note, enjoy the new chapter! :D
> 
> TW for: descriptions of dissociation/derealisation

“Watchers?” Tubbo repeated slowly, as if testing how the words sounded on his tongue.

“I — not really,” Tommy said.

Tubbo was frowning. “I think I have,” he said. “They live in The End, right?”

Grian nodded, face carefully neutral. He fiddled with the collar of his sweater, feeling cold sweat gather at the back of his neck.

“Oh, I remember,” Tubbo said, snapping his fingers. “Phil said they were a bunch of shits.”

Grian choked. Tommy’s eyes went wide and he elbowed Tubbo’s side.

“What?” Tubbo hissed. Tommy flicked his gaze towards Grian. “What?” He asked again, even more confused.

Tommy tugged Tubbo closer to whisper in his ear. Tubbo blinked.

“He’s not gonna kill us for swearing, big man —”

“I’m not gonna kill you for swearing,” Grian confirmed, feeling a bit guilty when Tommy nearly jumped out of his chair.

“You said you didn’t like swearing,” Tommy muttered, almost accusing.

“That doesn’t mean I’ll kill you for saying a few choice words,” Grian said. “You can swear. I really don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Tommy said. He paused.

“Phil said they were a bunch of shits,” he repeated.

Grian felt his face flash through several unreadable expressions.

“Okay, let's go back. _Who_ said they were _what?_ ”

“Phil said the Watchers were a bunch of shits,” Tubbo said plainly.

Grian felt his brain reboot. And rebooted again, for good measure.

“Okay,” Grian said, trying to make sense of it all. A tiny part of him was envious of the man who could so confidently cuss them out when Grian couldn’t even say their name without his stomach starting to churn. “What makes Phil say that?”

Tubbo shrugged, sitting back on his chair, and swinging his legs like a child — and oh, _god._ They were _children._ Some part of Grian had dimly registered they were probably not more than eighteen, but it didn’t hit him until now that the two boys in front of him were just that. Boys.

It made something in his heart twist painfully.

As much as Grian loved to portray himself as a somewhat childish trickster, he was smart, smarter than what most people would give him credit for. He knew what trauma was. He knew the anxiety and depression and the absolute _self-loathing_ that could come from it. Experienced firsthand how hard it was to claw your way to recovery, how healing was a constant effort you had to make, the exhaustion it brought about to always have to keep track of destructive thoughts - destructive thoughts like how there was a familiar comfort in sadness - otherwise you’d end up spiralling downwards until you’ve hit rock bottom and you’d have to claw your way back up _again._

And it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair that Grian could see himself in how Tommy’s eyes darted around the room, how Tubbo’s smile was a little too wide to be sincere, it wasn’t fair because Tommy and Tubbo were _children_ and they shouldn’t have to deal with the painful things Grian had to deal with, two-and-a-half years ago.

Tubbo nudged at Tommy’s arm. “Do you still remember the story?” He asked, cautious but hopeful. There was something in his voice; and unspoken apology, a desperate want to make things right.

“It was — it was something about him being kidnapped, I think, before he was taking care of us,” Tommy said slowly. “He saw. Like. A bunch of dudes wearing purple with their white masks looking all fancy and sh-shit. And they just took him and gave him wings and were like ‘you’re ours now’.”

Tubbo started to smile. “Then Phil was all like _nope_ and then just booked it and never looked back.”

“Though he did get some cool wings,” Tommy said, almost wistfully.

“I want wings,” Tubbo muttered longingly.

Grian wanted to point out they could always use elytras before remembering Tubbo’s aversion to fireworks.

“Okay. The reason I asked — we suspect it may be Watchers that brought you here.

“Watchers are — no one’s really sure _what_ they are, actually. They’re almost god-like beings that reside far in The End in their own little secluded community.”

“They don’t sound _that_ bad,” Tubbo said, almost childishly, naively. “Even if they did try to kidnap Phil.”

Grian smiled, sharp as a knife, and just a hint bitter. “Trust me. Count yourselves lucky if they never take an interest in you.”

“Why?” Tubbo asked, tilting his head to the side, curiosity shining bright in his eyes. Grian’s smile faltered.

“Some people aren’t as lucky as your guardian. Some — some don’t escape. At least, not for a long time.”

He saw Tubbo open his mouth again — to ask more questions, probably — but Grian plowed on.

“To put it simply, Watchers are — they’re archivists. They archive information. Information about the world, updates, anything and everything. They also archive prominent events. Events like wars on servers, events that could potentially shape the way certain things are done. And to help them do that, they use their magic to make them completely undetectable to the server itself so that they can record down those events without disturbances. So they won’t show up on the tab list, the players won’t see them, and they leave no message to show that they’ve entered or left the server.”

Tommy blinked slowly, eyes widening in dawning realisation. “Just like us. Except — we did show up on the tab list, right?”

Grian shrugged. “They’re many spells that exist, not just one, and they all have different functions. And that brings — we theorised that maybe a spell backfired, sending you here instead of the person it wanted to send. If it did backfire, it makes sense — pretty much everything makes sense, actually.”

“How _do_ you know it’s magic, though? There are other ways to sneak into whitelisted servers.” Tubbo pointed out. Grian resisted the urge to ask him how exactly he knew that.

“Because — because there’s a protective barrier around this server, made out of the same magic. Only magic can clash with magic. Which further supports our ‘spell backfired really badly’ theory.”

“So. Someone with magic must’ve sent us here,” Tommy started softly. When neither Grian nor Tubbo made any move to stop him, he continued, just a tiny bit louder. “But no one we know are Watchers — so how did we end up here?”

“Isn’t Phil one?” Grian asked.

Tommy did that thing where the corner of his mouth twitched upwards in a sort of half-smile. “Phil hates them. He wouldn’t help them even if they begged for it.”

Grian chewed at the inside of his cheek. “I… I don’t know, then. It’s just a theory, after all. Maybe it’s someone who can do magic, someone who’s affiliated with them.”

Tommy and Tubbo shared a glance, and silence fell over the room as they chewed over this piece of information. Tubbo’s hands were still shaking, still jittery, and he tucked them underneath his thighs. Grian felt his communicator buzz and he wriggled it out of his pocket, the glare of the screen momentarily blinding.

_[Mumbo]: x just gave me the map :p_  
_[Mumbo]: do you want to come over?_

Grian typed out a hasty affirmative, before tucking the communicator back into his pocket. “There’s food in the pantry,” Grian told the duo who looked up, slightly confused. “Help yourselves to anything you want.”

Tubbo cocked his head to the side as Grian began digging through chests and drawers, taking out a stack of papers and several ink pots — because Mumbo always managed to lose his — and placing them into his inventory.

“Are you going anywhere?” Grian heard Tubbo ask as he slid the lid off a barrel, sticking his hand in.

“To see Mumbo,” Grian replied, shoulder deep, rifling through the contents. He felt the back of his hand smack against a cool, glass flask and he wrenched it out, sliding it across the table to Tommy. “Here. Drink this again and you should be able to take off your cast tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Tommy said softly. Grian hummed, checking his inventory for everything he needed.

“Try to get some sleep, yeah?” He said softly, turning around. Tubbo gave him a smile and Tommy nodded, but Tommy was looking very resolutely at his cast and not at him, and Tubbo was tugging at the edges of his shirt, staring off at the frame of the doorway by Grian’s right ear.

Grian waved them goodbye, saw Tubbo give a shy wave back.

Something told him the duo would still be awake even after he came back.

\---

The stars hung overhead, blinking merrily, comforting in their presence. Colours exploded in the sky, painting the sky with streaks of yellow and orange and green, swirling and dancing through the night.

“How long do you think it’ll take for you to translate something?” Mumbo asked, tugging at the feathers of a quill pinched between his fingers.

Grian glanced up at the sky above, back pressed against the dry grass floor of Mumbo’s storage room. “I — it shouldn’t take more than a day,” he said. “If you’re talking about a book, that is.”

Mumbo drew his legs up to his chest and pressed his chin down on his knees. There was a quiet, almost soothing _scritch scritch_ sound of a quill tip against dry parchment, barely audible over the sound of rustling leaves. Grian turned his head so that it flopped to the side, grass brushing against his ear, and watched as Mumbo scribbled down something on the map laid on the grass in front of them, backed by an oak wood slab.

“Okay. So. One day for one book, because — as per your words, not mine — because proto-galactic is ‘stinky’.”

Grian laughed. “I did _not,_ ” he said in mock-indignance, stretching to kick one of Mumbo’s knees.

“You said ‘disgusting’, which is pretty much synonymous with ‘stinky’.”

“That’s not — no,” Grian snickered. “Go reread a dictionary.”

“I did, just last week actually —”

“No. You’re lying —”

“I did, I did, I read it with my dinky eyes and everything —”

Grian dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. “ _Dinky eyes_ —”

“Dinky eyes. What’s wrong with the word dinky?”

“You know what Iskall and I think about the word ‘dinky’.”

Mumbo smiled. “Okay, okay. Back to topic. One day for one presumably important book. That’s — what? A week per stronghold?”

“Yep,” Grian said, flopping back onto the grass, watching Mumbo scribble something onto the map in tiny, neat print. “That’s assuming I can find at least five books worth my time. The actual amount will probably be much less.”

“So — most of your time will be spent searching through the stronghold library,” Mumbo said, and Grian made a face.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Mumbo snorted, dipping his quill into one of Grian’s ink pots. He stuck his tongue out in concentration, scribbling more notes onto the map, and they lapsed into comfortable silence once again. Grian blinked, watching the stars overhead blink back.

“Do you ever intend to tell them you’re a Watcher?” Mumbo asked suddenly, quill stilling over the paper.

“Who, Tommy and Tubbo?” Mumbo nodded. Grian fiddled with the grass near his face, plucking them out, thinking, watching as droplets of ink fall from the quill in Mumbo’s hand, splattering onto the paper.

He scowled. “I don’t think I will,” he said, with more vehemance than he intended. Mumbo raised a curious eyebrow. Grian sprinkled the stray pieces of grass onto the map, eyes unfocused, thinking, thinking, thinking.

“I just told them hours ago that a Watcher may have brought them here and were the reason they can’t respawn. They’re gonna ha — they’re —” Grian sighed, and all of a sudden he felt weighed down, struggling to carry a burden he didn’t even know was there. “They’re scared, Mumbo. Tommy isn’t sleeping or eating and Tubbo keeps on putting on a brave face even though he’s equally as terrified. They see me as a _threat._ Telling them I have the power to — to hurt them even more isn’t gonna help matters.”

Mumbo was silent for a moment. “They remind you of yourself,” he finally said, and Grian smiled mirthlessly. Mumbo was always too good at reading him.

“Yeah.” He turned over, so that he was lying on his side instead, and tapped at the map. “Let’s recap. It’s getting late.”

Mumbo hummed, and picked up the notes he had scribbled down during the meeting with Xisuma earlier that day. “So. You’re going to have to go on a trip to all of Hermitcraft’s strongholds —”

Grian nodded, and Mumbo continued on.

“To find books — specifically spell books — that can help you reverse whatever’s wrong with Tommy and Tubbo.”

Grian nodded again. “And to find a spell that can hide us — or hide our names from the tab list, just in case the Watcher who accidentally sent them here is looking for them, and manages to find the server.”

Mumbo hummed. “Right. And you have to do this quickly, otherwise said Watcher comes on, finds both them — and consequently, _you._ ” He paused. “Are you sure you don’t want any help?”

“Nope,” Grian said blithely, hands tugging at the frayed ends of his sweater. Mumbo’s eyes darted to the movement, eyebrows raised. Grian couldn’t help but feel like a particularly interesting specimen, or a troublesome redstone circuit that Mumbo couldn’t get working.

“Something’s wrong,” Mumbo finally said. “Something you’re not telling me.”

Grian shrugged, twisting a thin red thread around his finger. Part of him wanted to lie, denial already on the tip of his tongue, but he knew Mumbo would see through it like glass.

Mumbo continued to stare. Finally, he spoke.

“You don’t think you’re going to find it in time,” Mumbo said. It wasn’t a question. “You don’t think you’re coming back.”

“No,” Grian agreed.

He traced the stars in the sky, pinched one in between his finger and his thumb, watching it wink from its place millions of kilometres in the sky. He wasn’t coming back. He rolled those words over in his mouth, like a stone, like a lozenge, mulling them over.

He wasn’t going to come back.

And he realised, with a sort of detached resignation, that he was okay with that. Everything was going to end eventually. The shoe was always bound to drop. Damocles’ sword was always meant to fall. Grian had overstayed his welcome, and now it was time to go.

His back was pressed against solid ground, but his head felt adrift, he felt adrift, adrift in the middle of the sea with no shore to be found, lost, floating, nothing to clutch at, nothing to ground him. Nothing felt real, like a surprisingly lucid dream, it felt like any second he would wake up back in The End with a mask on his face and wings on his back.

Mumbo was staring, looking, seeing him and seeing _through_ him, and despite the numerous years Grian had known the man he couldn’t for the life of him make out the expression on his face. His brows were furrowed and his mouth was twisted and his eyes were glinting and shining and iridescent like a thousand fractured stars.

“Don’t think that,” Mumbo snapped, voice thick, and Grian felt his world twist just slightly to the left. “You’re coming back. You _will_ come back.”

“I — I’m not, Mumbo,” Grian said as gently as possible, feeling his world spin spin _spin._ Mumbo was always the logical one, thinking in strict cause-and-effect, speech as orderly as the logic gates in his redstone. He was rational, analytical, cogent, he should know the odds of Grian finding the relevant spells before _they_ came was almost zero to none.

“You _will, _” Mumbo said, voice raw - turning everything Grian knew about him on its head - and Grian knew he wanted a promise. Grian never broke his promises.__

____

“I can’t promise you that,” Grian said, and Mumbo’s eyes grew wide in what looked like desperation.

____

“You — _no,_ you’ll come back, we — Iskall will help,” Mumbo said helplessly, forcefully, vehemently. His voice was thick like there was a lump in his throat he was struggling to speak around. “Xisuma. Scar. They’ll help —”

____

“I’m the only one who can read archaic standard galactic. It’s — it’ll be fine. Trust me.”

____

Mumbo’s mouth twisted even further.

____

“It’ll all be fine,” Grian said, smiling. “We — we’ve had our fun, and I’ve enjoyed it while it lasted. It was bound to end eventually. Like — I knew that. It’s okay.”

____

“No — _stop saying that,_ ” Mumbo snapped and his eyes flashed from something other than the flickering glow of the lanterns. Grian’s head twisted to the side, mouth slightly parted, because Mumbo’s voice was tight with something other than sadness — something Grian had only heard once before — something closer to _anger._ “It’s not the end, why — why are you giving up _now?_ ”

____

“You know the answer to that,” Grian told him. He stood up, brushing away the stray grass that clung to his sweater. The Wa - _they_ were powerful. Grian escaped once with nothing left to lose and it almost cost him his life. Now Grian had everything to lose, and they definitely wouldn’t hesitate to threaten the things that he valued more than life itself.

____

It was easier to accept defeat before the fight came to you. It was easier to brace for loss, to prepare the boats for the funeral, to dig your own grave that you would come to lie in than it was to fight and fight and fight only to experience the utter _devastation_ when you’ve realised that you’ve lost and lost _everything._

____

And besides. Grian was hardly worth the effort, anyway.

____

The grass tickled his ankles and there was wind in his hair. Mumbo’s mouth opened and closed and he looked like he didn’t know what to say, words slipping through his fingers like sand.

____

“You don’t have to go,” Mumbo said suddenly, fiercely, a desperation in his voice Grian had only heard from him two-and-a-half years ago in a dimension that was really more dead than alive. “You don’t — you don’t _have_ to go. You — you c-can give Tommy and Tubbo a world tour. Prank Iskall by — by filling his tree with diorite. Cover the shopping district in mycelium.”

____

Grian smiled, slow and sad. “Trust me,” he said. “It’ll make me feel a lot better to know I was doing something about it. At least, when it all comes to an end, I’ll know I’ve tried. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get to save Tommy and Tubbo.”

____

Mumbo’s face crumpled, and he buried his head into his knees. Grian kicked at Mumbo’s foot, a red sneaker against well-worn slack. Mumbo didn’t look up, and neither did he smile.

____

“It’s getting late,” Grian continued quietly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

____

“Tomorrow,” Mumbo replied, voice muffled. “And the day after that.”

____

Grian leaned over, knocked his knuckles against Mumbo’s hand.

____

“It’ll be okay. Really. Just — try to forget about me, or something.”

____

Grian walked forward to the edge of Mumbo’s base, hearing the rustling of grass as Mumbo stood up to stand next to him, and they both watched as the stars twinkled and winked. Mumbo glanced at him, hair mussed, messy black strands falling around red-rimmed eyes, and in some faraway recess in his mind he knew he should be feeling more than the detached resignation that smothered every pore like a heavy, suffocating duvet.

____

“You should go,” Mumbo said quietly.

____

Grian hummed noncommittally. Mumbo passed him the map, rolled up with a very Mumbo-like neatness, and suddenly the _realness_ of the situation hit him with the force of a tsunami crashing down onto a beach. It wrenched him out of the sea and he was no longer adrift; it flung him onto a wet beach, coughing and gasping, spat out like a dog’s chew toy; choking choking _choking_ on the reality of the situation.

____

He wasn’t going to come back. Mumbo was never going to stack the plates in the sink, neat and meticulous, after dinner anymore. He was never going to help Grian tidy up his bookshelves, or write over Grian’s sketches for his mansion in his tiny, neat handwriting.

____

Grian felt his eyes start to burn.

____

He would never know how the turf war would end. He would never see his mansion complete. He would never see Iskall or Scar or X or any of the Hermits again.

____

Something at the back of his throat had tightened until it hurt to breathe, and Grian sort of wished he was still treading water with nothing to cling on, because then he wouldn’t have to feel so miserable, so _devastated,_ over a long foregone conclusion.

____

Grian’s hand was on the string of a rocket, map tucked away safely in his inventory, and in that moment he wanted to say so many things but they clamoured and pushed their way up his throat — sticking there like taffy, like honey. He wanted to say _goodbye_ and _I love you_ and _see you tomorrow_ and so many other inconsequential, consequential things, he wanted to describe the indescribable, longing ache in his bones, he wanted to make promises he could keep.

____

“I don’t want to say goodbye.” Grian finally whispered, and it was almost a plea with how his voice wobbled and broke; it wasn’t what he wanted to say, it was everything he wanted to say. There was moonlight kissing his hair and there was wind caressing his wings and Grian in that moment wanted so many things he could never have. He wanted to see how the turf war would end. He wanted to see his mansion complete.

____

He wanted more time.

____

Grian turned towards his friend he would probably never see again and gave him a thin, fragile smile; coming apart at the edges, like the frayed ends of his sweater, like the loose ends he would never be able to tie.

____

“Goodbye, Mumbo. See you tomorrow.”

____

\---

____

The floorboards creaked and Tommy’s head shot up, glancing towards the kitchen doorway. Tubbo tensed, hands gripping the edges of the old book he held in his hands until the torn yellowed pages bent and crinkled.

____

“It’s Grian,” Tommy whispered. Grian had footsteps like Phil’s — light, irregular, like a bird hopping on the ground. Tubbo relaxed ever-so-slightly, releasing his white-knuckled grip on the book, and scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes.

____

Soon enough, Grian turned the corner of the hallway and came into full view of the kitchen.

____

“You’re still awake,” he said, but he didn’t sound surprised. There was red around his black-purple irises and tiny bits of grass that clung to his sweater. His hair was mussed and his cheeks were raw and red, like he’s just spent the past hour crying away.

____

“We wanted to do some research,” Tubbo said, jaw set in a mulish line, as if daring him to argue.

____

“I —” Grian said, voice all hoarse and croaky. “That’s good and all, but it’s 3 a.m in the morning — shouldn’t you be asleep?”

____

Tommy and Tubbo exchanged a glance.

____

“We didn’t want to sleep,” Tubbo said. It wasn’t the complete truth, but it wasn’t a lie, either. Tommy knew Tubbo didn’t want to sleep after the nightmare he had this morning — or was it last morning, now? — and Tommy wasn’t looking forward to lying in bed either, hearing the slightly maniacal voice of Wilbur whisper _‘let’s be the bad guys’_ again over and over in his ear.

____

Grian looked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he walked over — wood creaking underneath his feet — and tugged a book out from the precarious pile in the centre of the table.

____

“I’ll be leaving soon,” Grian said, and his voice stuttered over the word ‘soon’, words catching, tripping on themselves. “In two days.”

____

“Why?” Tommy asked, hating how his voice wavered at the end. As much as he still didn’t trust Grian, he didn’t like the idea of being left alone on a server with twenty other potentially dangerous people even more.

____

“To — you know how it’s a Watcher’s spell that brought you here?” Grian replied, eyes slightly unfocused. “I’m going to all the strongholds in the world to see if I can find any spells that can help. Reverse the effect, or something.”

____

“Strongholds? How would that help?” Tubbo interjected, leaning forward over the table. Grian blinked tiredly.

____

“The — the strongholds are a worldwide archive. There’s the main archive in The End, manned by the Wa- Watchers, and each section of that main archive is split into all 128 strongholds in the world. If there’s any information, it’ll be there.”

____

Tubbo’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re going on a trip to all the strongholds in this world?”

____

“Essentially, yes.”

____

There was a spark, a tiny flame in Tubbo’s eyes as he stood up roughly, chair clattering to the floor.

____

“Let us come,” he said, eyes and voice full of fiery steel and just a tiny, tiny bit of desperation.

____

Tommy blinked and felt the world go strangely off-kilter, like someone had shifted everything just a little bit to the left. Tommy was always the one taking the lead, Tubbo following behind. Tommy was impulsive. Tubbo was level-headed. Tommy made decisions with his heart. Tubbo made decisions with his head.

____

When had that changed?

____

Grian blinked, face flashing through several unreadable expressions.

____

“I — I can’t,” he said, rubbing the edges of the book between a forefinger and thumb. “As much as I — as much as I would appreciate the help, you can’t respawn. It’ll be too dangerous —”

____

“I don’t _care,_ ” Tubbo said fiercely. “Let us come. We want — we _deserve_ answers.”

____

There it was again, the world going off kilter, everything shifting slightly to the left, where nothing was right and nothing was left; Tubbo was always painfully logical — that was why Tommy was exiled, after all — and to see him act all desperate like that hit with the impact and suddenness of a fired rocket, a fired arrow, the ground coming to meet you as you fell.

____

“No, you don’t understand — it’s a one-way trip,” Grian said, and his eyes were shining, and Tommy wanted to ask if he was okay but didn’t know if he wanted to hear the answer. “There are _128_ strongholds in the world. There’s a huge chance I can’t find the relevant books in time before whoever sent you here comes. It’s safer if you stay here, where X and the rest can protect you.”

____

“That won’t matter, though,” Tubbo argued. “The people on the SMP — they’re dangerous. They don't care who or how many of you they have to cut down to reach us.”

____

“But it’ll still be a lot safer —”

____

“We want _answers,_ Grian,” Tubbo very nearly snapped. The world was going off kilter, the ground was reaching up to meet Tommy as he fell. “ _Please._ ”

____

Grian was tugging at the ends of his sweater. “The books — the books are usually in an incredibly archaic form of standard galactic, with a far older grammatical and pronunciation system than what the enchanting books use today,” he said. Tubbo seemed to straighten up with renewed determination — because that wasn’t a yes, but neither was it a no. He glanced down meaningfully towards the table, where they’d been dutifully translating the contents of Grian’s books for the past few hours.

____

Grian’s books, which were all written in archaic standard galactic.

____

“You know how to read proto-galactic,” Grian realised, eyes growing wide.

____

“Phil taught us. He always called it archaic galactic,” Tubbo said.

____

“They’re interchangeable terms.” Grian bit at his lip. “I don’t — are you sure? It’ll be dangerous —”

____

“We’re used to danger,” Tubbo said harshly, and Tommy saw Grian wince. “If you don’t let us come, we’ll just follow you. You can’t stop us. And technically — that’ll be _more_ dangerous, won’t it?”

____

“I —” Grian sighed through his nose, hugging the book to his chest, and Tommy couldn’t help but feel bad for the man, so clearly overwhelmed from the events of the day. “Tommy, what do you think?”

____

Tommy jerked in his seat. A look of shame and guilt flickered over Tubbo’s face, and he glanced at Tommy, eyes wide. “Tommy — I’m sorry. You know you don’t have to come if you don’t want to —”

____

“Will you still go, even if I don’t follow?” Tommy asked, trying to ignore the pang of hurt he felt. He knew somewhat that it was illogical, but he couldn’t help but feel Tubbo didn’t want him around.

____

“...yes.” Tubbo admitted softly.

____

Tommy felt his stomach start to churn. He would be alone. Completely alone.

____

_Again._

____

Scar and Iskall seemed nice enough, but how far could they be trusted? Could anyone on the server be trusted? How would Tommy be able to defend himself without armour or weapons or a base?

____

Would he be able to survive to see the sunrise?

____

“Then I’ll come. I’ll follow wherever you go.” Tommy decided — well, it wasn’t much of a decision, really — and Tubbo’s face brightened, shoulders slumping in relief.

____

“Then that’s decided,” Tubbo told Grian, voice stony, leaving no room for argument. “We’re coming along.”

____

Tommy’s world was going off kilter, and it looked like Grian’s was too — twisting to the left, the ground reaching up to meet them as they fell. Everything was moving, moving too fast, moving on, moving forward, without him.

____

“What do we need to bring?”

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, do tell me what you've enjoyed, what you didn't, I'm always trying to improve my writing to make this story as enjoyable as possible :D (also please do tell me if you see mumbo's name misspelt as mambo i don't know why it autocorrected it to that but it Happened so i'm really sorry if it breaks the immersion)
> 
> anyway - did Phil send the duo to HC? Was it someone else? Was it techno? ranboo? quackity?? who knows, certainly not me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, see you (if everything goes well) next week, when the new chapter drops! :)


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